Knowing Your Homekeeping Style

Homekeeping, whether you hate it, love it, or are indifferent, it’s a necessary part of our lives. Clothes needs to be washed, bathrooms need to be cleaned, and food needs to get on the table. Discovering your homekeeping style can change your approach and attitude toward the homekeeping tasks that never go away. I think that there are three generalized homekeeping styles found in our homes today.

The Ultra Organized/Clean Freak: Your socks are sorted in ROYGBIV order, and you know the right way to fold a fitted sheet with one hand tied behind your back.

The In-Betweener: Some areas of your home are organized. You have a junk drawer; random objects may fall out of certain closets.

The I Don’t Even Know Where to Start: You send your beloved family member to get toilet paper ,and you end up filing a missing person’s report.

Which one of these three homekeeping styles most reflects you?

Interestingly, I think that each of these styles mixed together makes the best homekeeper. Think about it. If you are the Ultra Organizer/ Clean Freak, your house appears pristine, but your techniques may be over the top for your family (you’re constantly trying to get them to clean up and put their things away the ‘right’ way.) The In-Betweener is striving for something better and looking for areas to improve. And the I Don’t Even Know Where to Start style may be more laid back. Mix the three together and you have a little bit of everything – tidy, laid back, and looking to improve.

So what can these three homekeeping styles learn from each other?

Cleaning and organization are good, as long as it makes things easier for the whole house. When there is order in a home, things are easier to find and everything tends to run a bit more smoothly.

Impromptu guests shouldn’t send your heart into palpitations. I have a cleaning routine so my home is 10-15 minutes away from unexpected company on any given day. This may sound extreme, but I want to feel good about opening up my home (I have a basket or two that things can be tossed in in a hurry and closed behind a closet door).

A tidy home creates a relaxed and homey environment that everyone enjoys being in.

A cleaning routine can free up your time because you are cleaning on a rotating basis according to your schedule and needs. When you have a routine, time isn’t wasted by trying to decide what room is in the worst shape.

Next month, I’ll talk about how to make a cleaning routine work for each homekeeping style. In the meantime, you can read more about my cleaning routine in this post , and you can see what kinds of things pique my interest on my Pinterest board here.

How about you? What homekeeping style best describes you?

Becky is a self-proclaimed clean freak and list maker. She is a work-at-home mom to three little ones, and in her spare time she enjoys sharing her cleaning and organizing tricks and tips on her blog, Clean Mama and through her Etsy Shop, Clean Mama Printables.

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A few things you should know about me: I'm a wife and mother of 6, as well as a full-time work-at-home mom, a passionate entrepreneur, a homeschooler, and an INTJ, with a heavy emphasis on the introvert! And I'm pretty sure fair-trade chocolate, loose leaf tea, and Starbucks lattes are among life's greatest pleasures.